Resultaten

The first assignment, carried out by VITO, focused on the following research questions:

• to what extent commercially available technologies can already be used, or whether further developments are needed to be able to carry out innovative dynamic exposure measurements (plot A); and
• what the ideal experimental design could be for the next experiments (plot B).

The results show that the performance of commercially available PM sensors is reasonably good, but that commercially available NO2 sensors are not yet ready for use. These require further development in terms of signal noise elimination and calibration. Seven possible experimental designs were developed by VITO. The experiments included in-situ testing of sensors with citizens/employees of VMM to gather qualitative user experiences and further research into calibration and data analysis techniques to improve the data quality of the NO2 sensors.

The results of the preliminary phase and this assignment have supported the VMM in setting up the European Horizon 2020 project COMPAIR (Community Observation Measurement & Participation in Air Science). In this project, the Flemish Environment Agency, together with 14 project partners, is investigating air quality using citizen science. More information is available on the COMPAIR project website.

The PIO project has been temporarily suspended pending the results of the COMPAIR project.